Date-4-Less

Many people have told me how much they enjoyed reading my stories about dating without money, so I’ve got another delightful example of a date-4-less (a terrible play on Food-4-Less, the name of a discount supermarket) tale – and it cost less than a Starbucks latté.

My boyfriend Larry, who requested that I refer to him as Alf to preserve his anonymity, came over to Chez Selena for dinner. I prepared a light repast that Alf and I enjoyed feeding each other whilst listening to music streaming in on my tinny computer speakers and enjoying a rollercoaster ride of conversation. Cost so far: zero dollars and only a little bit of dignity (when I choked on an olive during the feeding each other part).

After he gave me the Heimlich Maneuver we headed out and walked over to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), inhaling an enchanting whiff of the tar pits en route (“Whoa, Selena!” “That wasn’t me, that’s the sulfuric smell of the tar pits!”), to listen to some live jazz (nothing worse than dead jazz). (And yes, I am overly fond of parentheses.)

Throughout the summer – which in Southern California runs through November – the museum hosts a Friday Night Jazz series featuring Los Angeles musicians. It’s free and no tickets required. And for those of you who like the idea of an outdoor concert but don’t get jazz, they offer a full bar.

Larry, I mean Alf, and I got a couple of seats fairly close (i.e. not in the grassy field behind the museum) and listened to the lively music as we watched the sun set behind the band. Even for someone who doesn’t always appreciate jazz (is he playing the piano or having an epileptic fit?), I found the whole setting to be very romantic and artistically enriching. Also, there are plenty of odd-looking sculptures to make out behind.

Speaking of art (the sculptures, not the making out), the concert winds down around 8:00, so you still have time to wander around the museum and check out the collections and exhibitions. That was a lot of fun because there weren’t that many people so we didn’t have to listen to any pretentious conversations about the art.

The museum bookstore was open, too, so we leafed through some books of nude photography which counted as both culture and foreplay. The stroll home was delightful! We held hands and talked about the music we’d heard, the paintings we’d seen, and laughingly reminisced about the 80 year-old man who danced (to jazz, remember) (Hi, I’m Selena and I’m a parenthesesaholic.) the whole time. 

Of all the dates I’ve been on, this is one of the few that stands out as most memorable because it was so different from the usual dinner ‘n’ movie. Not to mention, it was my favorite price: free.